Cool
by sapphireswimming
Summary: Something's eating Danny, but Sam and Tucker get a little sidetracked on the way to figuring out what it is.


**Subject to title change if anyone can suggest a better one. I've never liked this even as a working title. :P**

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**Cool**

June 3, 2013

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Danny wouldn't pick his face out of his hands no matter how many times Sam or Tucker poked him. And they had been trying for a solid ten minutes, alternating solid jabs with half-hearted movements drowning in laughter and teasing that only made him persist more in what he was doing.

"Amity Park has got to be the only place on earth where people have lost their fear of the paranormal," he grumbled after a few minutes when they had let up for a bit.

"I think it's cool," Sam said, completely ignoring his despairing tone of voice.

Although she knew that her tone of voice would push her friend further into whatever funk he had gotten himself into, she was pleased that he had started talking. It had actually gotten pretty annoying just listening to him moan and groan without any sort of explanation as to why he seemed so depressed.

Danny groaned. "It's not cool! In no way could it ever be construed as cool! Are you even listening to yourself? People are talking and walking with ghosts!" He shook his spread hands out helplessly before him.

"Yeah, we hear you, dude. It's pretty neat, actually, when you think about it. We're like all of those characters on TV shows that have access to beyond this mortal realm…" With the last part of that sentence, Tucker put his hands out in front of him and waggled his fingers as he brought out his entirely fake and cheesy spooky voice imitation.

It normally brought Danny out of his rare angst-fests— how could making fun of ghosts in Amity Park not do that?— but this time, it just made Danny rub his face out of frustration and exclaim, "Exactly!"

His two friends looked at him, baffled.

"Exactly… what?" Tucker asked.

"Yeah," Sam picked up. "I mean, this is every Goth's dream… talking to ghosts every day. We're practically considered clairvoyants by the rest of the world." She paused and poked Danny in the shoulder repeatedly with a strong index finger. "Do you know just how many people have requested to be friends with me on facebook or on gothnet or in ghostworld just because I have Amity listed as my town of residence? Huh? Huh?"

Danny didn't seem enthusiastic about anything she had said, but Tucker perked up.

"Dude, you're on ghostworld?"

She shot him one of her finest glares. "Shuttup, Tucker."

"No, seriously, you have an account on ghostworld? Like, you use it? You talk to people on it?"

"Yeah," she admitted grudgingly. "How do you think I get all of the research done for this brainless team of ours?"

"Hey, I resent that!" her friend exclaimed.

"I couldn't care less, Tucker." She gave him a short smile to show she didn't really mean it, even though he knew that from the simple fact that they had known each other for nearly all their lives.

"I'll have you know that I am one of the finest minds at Casper High."

"Well, when you're surrounded by a mindless crowd full of jocks like Dash and shallow witches like Paulina," Sam smirked, "I'm not surprised."

"Oh come on, don't you remember stuffing me into the Cramtastic Mach 5?" Tucker appealed to her with arms outstretched.

She rolled her eyes. "Of course I remember, Tucker. How could I ever forget? You were running on autopilot spouting off things I never wanted to know for weeks afterward."

"It was one of the worst experiences of my life, let me tell you that. Except for the whole getting killed via Nasty Burger sauce thing. That probably ranked up higher on my list of things not to do again. But other than that… yeah, that was probably the worst thing that's happened to me since knowing you."

"Worse than me making you run a marathon and do three hundred push-ups in exchange for a Styrofoam PDA?"

Tucker blanched as he recalled the horrible incident that came as a precursor to the Presidential Fitness Test. "That… that was not good either. Actually that might have been worse. Because that had physical and emotional scarring."

"Where as the Cramtastic incident had… what?"

"Mental scarring."

"Yeah," Sam snorted, "for us."

"Um, hello? For me too! I was the one you used it on!"

"Yeah, and you were the one who got a perfect score on the test," Sam pointed out with a raised eyebrow. "Congrats. You and Jazz were the only students in Casper High history to have done that. It was totally how you passed ninth grade. And now you're complaining about it? That's the only reason you can lay any claim to being a great academic mind. Because you were synched with a computer."

Tucker grinned. "Everything's better when synched with a computer."

Sam sighed and face-palmed. "Sometimes, I worry about you."

Tucker was grinning and it was contagious.

Sam looked worriedly at Danny, though. He should have reacted to their squabble. He was always the pacifier. He jumped up in between them whenever something appeared to be heading into ground that was too controversial, like meat or veggies. But he hadn't made a move to break up their fight. He didn't even look like he had heard what they had said. Not even when they had mentioned the incident with his jerky evil future self.

Sam bit her lip. Well, that was distressing.

What could have gotten him so depressed? They were still no closer to finding out what had started this whole thing than they had when it began. She didn't know what else to do except continue on the course she had started. Time to pick a fight with Tucker.

_And boy_, she thought wryly, _would that be hard_…

"But yeah, since you asked, I do have an account on ghostworld." She nailed him with a defensive glance as if to dare him to comment on it. He didn't even need to know about her plan to take the bait.

He would have been speechless at the news if he had been anyone else. But he was Tucker. He was never speechless.

Instead, he screeched out, rather high-pitched, "Seriously?" His eyes bulged.

Sam crossed her arms and smirked. "Yep."

He seemed to be fumbling for words. "What's your username?"

"GothGhost."

Tucker gaped at her. "You're _GothGhost_?" It looked like he could hardly believe it. His jaw worked up and down soundlessly for a minute before he repeated himself. "_You're_ GothGhost?"

Sam rolled her eyes.

"Yeah. What, you're finding it hard to believe?" She pinned him with a stare and he didn't reply.

"Why? You think that it's a stupid website and that I can't find any answers to the things we don't know on there so that we don't have to go ask Danny's parents? Huh? Huh?" She pressed.

"No. No. Not at a—" Tucker put his hands out in front of him as if to show that he meant no offense even if he couldn't make his mouth form any sort of coherent expression to that effect.

"Well then why don't you think I should be on it?" She tilted her head to the side and continued to barrage him with questions. "If that's not it, could it be that you don't think I should be posting anything?" She stepped back with an indignant expression on her face. "You think I don't know enough to contribute, don't you? You think that I'm not qualified to answer anyone's questions… that I'm just a crazy cyberspace quack peddling information?"

Tucker didn't answer any of her questions.

"Oh, or do you think that I'm just trying to flaunt my knowledge and proximity to all things ghostly and cool? That I need a popularity boost in the spectral community? Is that what you think I've stooped to?"

Tucker had no reply to give.

"You're GothGhost?" He finally repeated, mystified.

Well, at least Sam could say that she was legitimately annoyed with him.

"Yes." She was exasperated. "I've told you that at least four times now. Is it really that hard to believe?"

His wide eyes gave her the answer. She sighed and put her hand on her temple.

"Tucker… sometimes, I just do not understand you." She looked up at his still astonished face. "Why are you looking at me like that? You're looking at me as if you…" She broke off here, eyes going wide.

She had suddenly realized that for Tucker to have been so astonished at finding out who she was on ghostworld meant not that he was surprised she was on there, but was surprised at what her username was. He knew who she was. He had been on there too. He had read what she posted. They might even have interacted on the forums. That might explain some of the gaping and open-mouthed gasps.

But who could he…

Oh. Oh no. She cringed when an idea came to her. Oh that couldn't be it…

"Tucker…?" She managed to breathe out, hardly daring to put her thoughts into words.

He looked up at her, just as stricken as she started to realize the truth. "Yeah…?"

"You aren't…" It was her turn to falter. "Are you…?" She swallowed heavily, deciding to put the burden of proof on him. That would make her life easier. "Are you on ghostworld?"

He nodded without saying a word.

"And…" she paused as if nervous to even ask. "Who are you?"

Tucker swallowed very noticeable and chuckled nervously. "Heh. Um… about that… well, it's a really interesting story. You would never really have…"

"Tucker!" she yelled, hands balling into fists at her sides.

He stopped talking immediately. Fear, as he had long since discovered, was standing before an irate Sam.

"Okay. I'm…" and whatever he said was lost in his mumble.

"I can't hear you, Tucker," Sam seethed.

"I'm… GhostGeek?" He asked in a squeak.

She knew it. Somehow, she had known it. Oh! how had she not seen it all along? His hideous attempts to flirt with anyone whose username was remotely female… the Ghost and Geek together? She must have been the most oblivious person in the world not to have put two and two together.

Tucker had been her most informative contact on the site and she had never known that it was one of her two best friends? The embarrassment of the situation was enough to make her speechless for a minute or two.

Finally, she managed to gather her wits about her long enough to confirm what he had said and she already knew to be true. A waste of time and effort, sure, but what else was she supposed to do? It wasn't like Danny was stepping in to stop the awkwardness.

"You… are GhostGeek?" She asked with a quirked eyebrow and an expression that Tucker didn't like plastered across her face.

He nodded, afraid to do anything more in case it called down her wrath upon him.

For a moment, it seemed to work, but then she lost it.

"You are GhostGeek and you never told me?" she yelled in his face.

He shrank back. "Yes," he squeaked as he covered his head with his hands. "I'm sorry. I wouldn't have told you if I had known it was you!"

"My username is GothGhost, you idiot, who else did you think it could be? I said I lived in Amity Park and I knew more about ghosts than you did. Who did you honestly think it could be?"

"I don't know! But I could say the same about you! I mean, really, GhostGeek isn't a total give-away?"

Sam darkly muttered something under her breath.

"What did you say?" Tucker looked totally lost.

"Never mind," Sam replied, still looking very put out by the situation. Her face couldn't decide if it was peeved by her discovery or grossed out or something entirely different.

"Next thing I know, I'll find out that Danny has an account there too…" she muttered.

Tucker looked over at their friend who still had his head in his hands. It seemed as if he had missed the entire encounter.

Tilting his head to the side, the techno-geek wondered silently for a moment about what Sam had said. "You know… you may be right."

Sam looked over, waiting for him to clarify what he had said so that she could understand his comment.

Motioning to Danny, Tucker continued. "He could be Phantom1 or 2 or 3 or 4… Or he could be Gh0st-b0y." He broke off to chuckle. "Or InvisoBill. Maybe even xxgeistghostxx… although that would be really weird because I've seriously been flirting with them."

Sam and Tucker both paused to gag simultaneously at the image.

"Yeah, anyway, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if he had an account." Tucker laughed. "I bet he does have one. I bet we all had one and none of us knew about it. Man!" He exclaimed, wiping a tear away from his eye. "That would be priceless."

He grinned at Sam, before turning to his other friend.

"Hey, Danny," he said loudly enough to get his attention, "Wouldn't that be priceless?"

"Wouldn't what be priceless?" Danny grunted without much interest or enthusiasm.

Tucker gaped. "Dude, you haven't been listening to a single thing that's been going on, have you?"

Danny finally lifted a head to show them bleary eyes and worry etched across every single feature of his face.

"No, I haven't," he wearily admitted. "How can I spend time listening to you guys arguing when I have something this important to worry about?"

Tucker shook his head. "Now that's just sad."

Sam sighed. "Danny, you haven't told us what the problem is. You haven't even really told us that there _is_ a problem," she pointed out.

"That's right," Tucker continued. "If you expect us to be helping you come up with a solution, you kinda have to spill the beans and let us know what's going on instead of moping and groaning like it's the end of the world when it probably isn't."

"But it is!" Danny protested. "It's bad. It's really bad. It's really, really, _really_ bad."

"Okay," Sam held up a hand to stop him from continuing. "We get the idea. Now what's the problem? Who're we talking about?"

"It's happening to like, everyone! Even you guys! It's everywhere I look and I just don't know what to do about it anymore. I can't take it. I just can't take it."

His head fell dramatically into his arms once more and he was reduced to a miserable mass of moans.

Sam and Tucker looked at each other for a moment before Sam rolled her eyes.

"You… didn't study for Lancer's test this morning, did you?"

"No…" Danny said pitifully without lifting his head up. "But what does that have to do with anything?"

His two friends had knowing smirks on their faces.

"You're always down in the dumps when you fail a test, Danny." Sam let the ghost of a smirk make its way onto her face. She had had no problem with the test, but she knew how Danny worked well enough to sympathize a little bit. She lowered her voice to a theatrically loud conspiratory whisper. "That's kind of how it goes."

"Yeah, and we've known you long enough that when it gets this bad, you must have really failed that test."

"Tucker!" Sam snapped. "That's not helping."

"Hey, it's the truth!" he protested.

She didn't care. "Be quiet." She turned to Danny again. "Anyway, everything seems even bigger than it did before the accident. So when something goes wrong, you think it goes really, really wrong. Even though it probably hasn't."

Danny shook his head wildly, lobbing it from side to side so that it clanked against the tabletop he had rested against.

Tucker grimaced at his best friend's display. "So spill, dude. What has got you so worked up? What do you think is so bad?"

Danny looked up, his eyes starting to look a bit bloodshot.

"Everyone in Amity Park walks among ghosts every day. Some of them even talk to ghosts. They actually think it's cool. _You_ think it's cool!" he said accusatorily.

"That's because it is…" his friend softly interrupted.

"Be quiet, Tucker; let him finish or we'll never figure out what he's trying to say."

Tucker was duly silent. Danny continued.

"People aren't afraid of ghosts anymore. They walk out in the middle of the street when there's a ghost fight instead of running away. Sometimes they even go looking for ghosts!" He broke off for a moment before picking up his momentum again. "I can't believe how stupid people are! Don't they get that ghosts are in Amity to wreck havoc? And they go looking for them, walking right toward them as bait! Stupid!"

Sam looked at him in concern. She was starting to understand what might be going on in his head.

"Danny, it's not your fault that people are stupid. It isn't your job to save them from their stupidity."

"But it is my job to save them from the ghosts and to keep them from getting hurt. And if it's their stupidity that is putting them in danger like that, then that's what I have to defend them from."

He looked pained and his eyes were glassy and dull.

"I'm the hero," he whispered. "I can't ignore it. But I don't know what to do."

"Dude, Danny," Tucker took a step forward. "We know that you're trying your hardest and doing the best you can."

"But it's not enough!" Danny exclaimed. "It isn't working!"

"That's all you can do. Sometimes, there will just be stupid people and you can't help that. But don't beat yourself up about it. You're doing all you can do," he repeated.

Danny sighed. "I don't know what to do about it anymore. It's just… it's gotten out of control. Every time I arrive on the scene to fight a ghost, they're about to kill some defenceless human and then I always have to worry about humans around on the ground and they could get hit by a stray shot… or an intentional one in the split second when I'm blinking. There's nothing I can do to stop it. I can't even pretend that I'm able to prevent it."

He was silent for a moment before pulling at his hair and just screaming in frustration. "Gah!"

Sam and Tucker looked on, not really knowing what they could do. There wasn't anything they could do to remedy the situation or to make their friend feel any better about the events he wouldn't be able to control. Any attempt to do so would just make him feel worse.

Even something as simple as putting a hand on his shoulder seemed out of place. The consolation would be so little. Too little. But they couldn't bear not helping him at all.

They unconsciously moved forward a bit. He couldn't see them, but they wanted to tangibly show at least themselves that they stood solidly behind him in all that he did. It was a small movement, but it meant that Danny was not alone.

"If this doesn't stop, people are going to get hurt," Danny said, deadly serious. "Really hurt."

He put his head in his hands again with a despairing sigh and for once, Sam and Tucker agreed that he had a valid reason to do it.

They sat in silence, only taking their eyes off of their hero friend to briefly meet each other's pained and worried glance.

What could they really say to that?

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**Hooray for Sam and Tucker friendship. They're just as awesome as Danny is so I love seeing fics where they get to be in the forefront of the story. Even if it's at an angsting Danny's expense! XD**


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